Posts Tagged ‘Ahmadinejad’

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s welcome on the sunny Ipanema beach in Rio was less than warm from an eclectic group of Jews, human rights activists, and homosexuals, who arrived Sunday to protest the Iranian president’s attendance at a UN summit on sustainable development.

The protest was organized by a group called the Commission Against Religious Intolerance.

“We want the world to know that religious hatred harms the environment and Ahmadinejad represents hatred. Sustainable development encompasses human rights,” Ivanir dos Santos representative of the commission told the AFP.

“Citizens in Rio have good reason to be appalled by this visit. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad embodies the ideology of intimidation and violence fomented by Iran’s militant Islamic Republic,” Alex Traiman, director of the award-winning documentary exposing the Iranian regime’s radical ideology, Iranium, told the Jewish Press. “For decades, Iran has expanded its influence in South America, through large oil contracts and joint terror operations. Iranians carried out mass-scale bombings in Argentina in the 90’s while Hizbullah, an Iranian terror proxy, has cells all over the continent.”

Unlike previous demonstrations organized by the commission, no Muslims took part in Sunday’s rally.

“Muslims do not take part in demonstrations against a fellow Muslim, even if they disagree with him,” commission representative dos Santos told the AFP.

Demonstrators waved placards in support of Iranian nationals, but also carried banners stating “Rio does not welcome Mahmoud Ahmadinejad” and chanted “Ahmadinejad out of Brazil” to the beat of drums.

Michel Gherman, head of the Hillel of Rio, told AFP that Ahmadinejad’s visit “is an opportunity to criticize his hateful speech denying the Holocaust as well as the persecution of homosexuals and Bahais”.

The UN summit will include discussions on eradicating poverty and protecting the environment.

A new report on the Iranian nuclear arms program compiled by the Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) shows that Iran is in fact accelerating its efforts to build a nuclear bomb.

MEK is known for its ties with the CIA and the Mossad and was responsible for the revelation of the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in 2002.

The report was obtained by two major Western outlets, the German paper Die Welt and the Jerusalem Post.

The Post revealed that the headquarters of the Iranian organization dealing with the development of a nuclear weapon (known by its Farsi acronym SPND) is based in Mojdeh, a military facility near Tehran.

SPND has seven sub-divisions, each of them dealing with a different element of the process needed for building a nuclear weapon.

The MEK report appeared three days after a publication by the Washington based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) about the ‘washing’ of a building at Parchin, a military complex southeast of Tehran. The IAEA suspects that this building contains an explosive chamber used to carry out nuclear arms related experiments and has repeatedly demanded access to the complex. Iran has not yet complied with this demand.

These revelations come a few days before Iran and the major world powers are to resume their talks about the Iranian nuclear program.

She said: “my ambition is that we come away with the beginning of the end of the nuclear weapons program in Iran.”

Ashton’s use of the term ‘nuclear weapons program’ however, clearly went beyond the usual EU description of Iranian nuclear activities.

Iran expert Emanuele Ottolenghi expects the MEK report to be a game-changer in Western perceptions of Iran’s nuclear program.

Meanwhile, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continued his rhetoric against Israel, calling the Jewish state a ‘mosquito’.

During the same speech Ahmadinejad made a veiled remark about certain developments in Iran that would enable Iran to become a “developed country.” As a result, he said, “Iran’s enemies would not be able to challenge the Islamic Republic anymore.”

According to a report by Fars News Agency, Russia has returned Iran’s advancement payment and the accrued interest after reneging on the delivery of S-300 air-defense systems to Iran.

“The main payment and its interest was returned to Iran by the Russian side,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said in a press conference in Tehran on Tuesday.

Iran brought the issue before the International Court of Arbitration, filing a complaint against the non-governmental Russian defense contractor company with which it entered into the contract.

According to the contract signed in 2007, Russia committed to supplying Iran with at least five S-300 air-defense systems. But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared in September 2010 that selling the missile systems to Iran would contravene UN Security Council Resolution 1929; it is understood that this stance resulted from the intense pressure brought to bear by the US government.

The Mehr news agency reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, and Tajiki President Emomali Rahmon “called for more cooperation” during their summit in the Tajiki capital of Dushanbe on Sunday.

The next summit between Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan be held in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Daily Times reports that Ahmadinejad said the celebrations of Nauroz showed that life only improved after a hard winter, when friends joined forces. “Nauroz represents a battle between the forces of light against those of darkness, the fight against injustice,” Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony hosted by President Rahmon and attended by 15,000 spectators. “Nauroz is traditionally viewed as a new day without poverty, aggression, instability, crime, discrimination, occupation and the abasement of human dignity,” Ahmadinejad said. “All people have the right to live their life in dignity.”

Ahmadinejad is using his visit to the Tajik capital “to ratchet up rhetoric in the face of renewed international pressure over his country’s contested nuclear drive,” writes the Daily Times.

“Only the friends and neighbours of Afghanistan can in practice and realistically help this nation,” Ahmadinejad said in a statement released by his office on Saturday. “The occupiers who came to this nation from miles away are not here to aid the government and the people of Afghanistan but are here to loot the resources and mines of Afghanistan.”

Both Zardari and Karzai gave more restrained speeches that made no reference to the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan or to the United States.

Tajikistan is a small land-locked country that borders Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, China, and Afghanistan and is home to some of the highest mountains in the world. It is the poorest of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

Tajikistan

Politically, Tajikistan is a nominally constitutional, democratic, and secular republic, dominated by President Emomali Rahmon who has been in power since 1992.

According to the State Department, Supporters of terrorist groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), al-Qaida, and the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement remain active in Tajikistan, and have carried out terrorist attacks involving suicide bombers.

The four presidents, meeting to celebrate the ancient Persian New Year, or Noruz, urged the expansion of relations between regional countries “to resolve problems facing the region.”

The declaration comes against the background of the increasing economic sanctions against Iran, including the announcement by the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, a clearing system used by the world’s major banks, that it is obeying the European Union’s ban on Iranian financial firms, including some 40 Iranian banks.

Mehr reports that during the summit Ahmadinejad suggested that “the enemies of the region are experiencing many problems and have reached an impasse.” He called for closer cooperation between the four countries.

The Azerbaijani National Security Ministry announced that 22 people have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran, AFP reported Wednesday.

“Twenty-two citizens of Azerbaijan were arrested by the National Security Ministry for cooperating with the Iranian Sepah [the Iranian Revolutionary Guards],” the Ministry said, according to AFP. “Firearms, cartridges, explosives and espionage equipment were found during the arrest.”

The 22 individuals were allegedly instructed to “commit terrorist acts against the US, Israeli and other Western states’ embassies and the embassies’ employees.”

Azerbaijani authorities did not clarify if these were new arrests – since Azerbaijani authorities did not release the date of the arrests – or confirmation of earlier arrests made in February.

Situated between Europe and Asia, and with Iran straddling its southern border, Azerbaijan has recently become a strategic front in a war of subterfuge between Israel and Iran, with reports that both have activated intelligence operatives in this the largest country in the Caucasus region.

Arrests come amid attempts to patch up Iran-Azeri relations

The announcement of the arrests came a day after Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev met with senior Iranian officials in an effort to prevent a further deterioration in relations with Iran due to Azerbaijan’s recent crackdown on Iran-linked terror plots, and its burgeoning ties with Israel.

Iran has grown increasingly nervous since it’s northern neighbor signed a multi-billion dollar arms deal with Israel last month, whereby Israel will supply Azerbaijan with drones and missile defense systems.

“We will not allow Azerbaijan’s soil to be used against Iran under any conditions,” Abiyev pledged after meeting with his Iranian counterpart Ahmad Vahidi in Tehran.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that “[w]e are sure that we will face no problem from our brother and neighbor Azerbaijan.”

Coming on the heels of these magnanimous proclamations, the arrests are likely to inflame tensions and nullify any good will the high-level meetings may have fostered between the two countries.

Rumors emerged over Purim on Capitol Hill, that the Republican Party, splintered and struggling at the polls, has offered Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu the opportunity to run as their candidate in the upcoming United States Presidential election.

An off-the-record source confided:

“According to our latest polls, the only one who can topple President Obama in an election is Netanyahu. The Americans love his square jaw and tough John Wayne stare. Let’s face it – you get chills when Bibi speaks in English. Everyone else on our list sounds like some hillbilly who got drunk at a football game or some Evangelist church party.
With our Republican control over the Congress, we can pass a law allowing a foreigner to be President. If Netanyahu accepts our offer, it’ll be good for us and good for him. This way, Israel will have America’s entire military arsenal behind them to blow Teheran and Ahmadinejad sky high off the map.”

Over Purim, the JewishPress.com tried to reach the office of the Israeli Prime Minister, but he has refused to comment if he will be accepting the offer.